Official Warmth and Public Rage for Merkel in Athens

Riot police fought with demonstrators protesting a visit by Chancellor Angela Merkel in front of the Parliament in Athens on Tuesday.Credit
Dimitri Messinis/Associated Press

ATHENS — Venturing into the most hostile territory in Europe, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany visited Athens on Tuesday, telling Greeks that she understood their suffering but urging the country to stay the course on reforms and budget cuts.

But even as Ms. Merkel said that she had come as a “good friend and a real partner,” not a “taskmaster or teacher to give grades,” the approximately 40,000 Greeks who took to the streets in protest (a rather modest number, by Greek standards) treated the visit as a provocation by the arch-nemesis in the euro crisis whose austerity medicine is obliterating the Greek middle class.

Some banners read “Don’t cry for us Mrs. Merkel” and “Merkel, you are not welcome here.” A small group of protesters burned a flag bearing the Nazi swastika, while a handful of protesters dressed in Nazi-style uniforms drew cheers of approval as they rode a small vehicle past a police cordon.

Some 7,000 police officers, many brought to the capital from the provinces for the day, were on standby, along with rooftop snipers.

“This is pure provocation, we have to answer back,” a nurse, Christina Amanti, 37, said about Ms. Merkel’s visit. “It’s like she’s visiting her protectorate. What’s she going to do, pat us on the back and tell us to keep getting poorer, that it’s good for us?”

Ms. Merkel came to Athens, a city on security lockdown for the visit, to offer support to the coalition government of Prime Minister Antonis Samaras. It is struggling to agree on a $17 billion austerity package demanded by Greece’s troika of foreign lenders — the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund — as a precondition for releasing a $40 billion installment of aid that the country needs to meet expenses.

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Prime Minister Antonis Samaras welcomed Chancellor Angela Merkel in Athens on Tuesday. It was Ms. Merkel's first visit to Greece since the European debt crisis erupted almost three years ago.Credit
Panagiotis Moschandreou/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Ms. Merkel’s visit, the first by a major European leader since the start of the debt crisis in 2009, capped her recent efforts to show a renewed dedication to European solidarity after years of harsh words about Greece and Europe’s other laggard economies.

Her trip also seemed to signify the dawning realization in Berlin that as nettlesome as the current leaders of southern Europe may have been at times, Mario Monti in Italy, Mariano Rajoy in Spain and Mr. Samaras in Greece are the most amenable interlocutors she is ever going to have to work with.

The debt crisis has brought down governments in Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Spain, but it has radically transformed the political landscape here in Greece. In two destabilizing rounds of elections in May and June that eventually yielded Mr. Samaras’s coalition, the centrist parties saw their historic support plummet while a leftist opposition party surged and neo-Nazis entered Parliament.

“It’s the outcome of the June 17 elections, the perception that this is the best government you can get under the current circumstances,” said Janis A. Emmanouilidis, a senior analyst at the European Policy Center.

In recent months, Ms. Merkel — who is also facing growing criticism within Germany over Greece, a year ahead of her own election — has come to recognize “the geostrategic importance, what would happen if the situation would deteriorate,” Mr. Emmanouilidis said. That includes a host of “potential domino effects” related to European security, the common market and the entire project of European integration.

“Going there is the right thing to do, even if you have negative pictures from Athens,” Mr. Emmanouilidis added. “You need to face it head on and not pretend it’s not as bad as it is.”

Ms. Merkel seemed to echo that thinking in her remarks on Tuesday. “It is in our common interest that we in Europe once again win back our credibility in Europe and show that in the euro zone we can solve our problems together,” she said at a joint news conference with Mr. Samaras, as tens of thousands of demonstrators marched outside Parliament nearby, some scuffling with police officers who fired back tear gas.

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The police in Athens used tear gas on protestors Tuesday during the demonstration against Chancellor Merkel's visit.Credit
Angelos Tzortzinis for The New York Times

The Greek prime minister said Ms. Merkel’s visit had “broken our international isolation” and “turned a new page in the relations of Greece and Germany,” adding that it also helped diminish fears that Greece might exit the euro. “Everyone who has bet on Greece’s collapse and that Europe will be badly hurt will lose this bet,” he said.

But many Greeks are extremely skeptical about Germany’s intentions.

“There’s no united Europe; there’s the Europe of Germany,” said Irene Sikiaridi-Krokou, 59, a retired airline hostess and supporter of the leftist Syriza party, as she stood outside Parliament with a Greek flag draped over her shoulders.

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After three years of grinding austerity, Greece’s gross domestic product has shrunk by 25 percent. Unemployment is now at 50 percent for young people and 24 percent over all, while vital services like health care have faltered following round after round of cuts.

“In three years they have destroyed a nation,” said Maria Choussakou, 59, a former high school teacher of ancient Greek who said she had been forced into early retirement. “We were middle class, now we’re impoverished.”

At the news conference, Ms. Merkel acknowledged the “suffering” Greece was facing. But she encouraged the country to continue on its path of structural reforms. “Much has been achieved, much has been demanded of the Greek people,” she said. “I am deeply convinced that it’s going to be worthwhile.”

But many Greeks have lost faith in Europe’s words. “It’s just spin, it means nothing,” said Vassiliki Tsitsopoulos, a literature professor who attended Tuesday’s demonstration. “It’s never been worse, it’s just going to get worse.”

“We’re just keeping up appearances,” Ms. Tsitsopoulos added. “Including the demonstrators. At this point, we’re part of the scenery.”